28 Mar 2017

Public officers who are at lower grades are employed on permanent and pensionable terms in order to maintain continuity and consistency of service delivery, Parliament was told.
Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Thato Kwerepe said given the nature of services provided by government, it made logical sense to employ public officers at the lower grades on permanent and pensionable terms.
That, he said would help maintain continuity and consistency of service delivery as they were the people on the ground through which services were delivered.
He said permanent and pensionable service guaranteed pension and benefits which may not be offered on contract employment.
He further said contract employment and performance were not directly related.
Also, he said given the numbers that were involved at that level, contract employment may cause unnecessary administration burden to government.
He, however, emphasised that performance of individual officers had to be monitored irrespective of employment terms and necessary corrective measures be taken where performance was found to be wanting.
Mr Kwerepe said in terms of Section 27(3) (g) of the Public Service Act, a public officer shall be summarily dismissed if his or her work performance continued to be below average despite warnings.
He was answering MP for Takatokwane, Mr Ngaka Ngaka who wanted to know if the ministry would consider hiring government employees on a two-year contract basis starting from C Scale.
Mr Ngaka also wanted to know whether that would not improve performance in the government services. ENDS